In its issue of June 27, 1915, the Vienna
Arbeiter-Zeitwig, central organ of the Austrian Social-Democrats,
cites a very instructive declaration contained in the German governmental
Norddeutsche Aligemeine Zeitung.

The declaration deals with an article by one of the best known (and
vilest) opportunists of the “Social-Democratic.” Party of
Germany named Quarck, who said inter alia:

“We German Social-Democrats and our Austrian comrades have
repeatedly declared ourselves ready to establish contacts (with the British
and French Social-Democrats) for the purpose of beginning peace
talks. The German Imperial Government know of this, and have not placed
the slightest obstacle in our way.”

Nationalliberale Korrespondenz, a German national-liberal paper,
has said that the concluding words permit of a double interpretation. The
first is that the government have put no obstacles in the way of
“international political action” by the Social-Democrats,
insofar as it does not transgress the limits of legality and “is not
dangerous to the State”. This, the paper says, is perfectly
intelligible from the angle of “political freedom”.

The second interpretation is that the German Government “at least
tacitly approve of the Social-Democratic internationalist peace propaganda,
and even consider it a suitable means of laying down the initial basis for
exploring the possibility of peace”.

The national-liberal paper naturally considers this latter interpretation
out of the question. In this it has the official support of the government
newspaper, which goes on to say that “the government have nothing in
common with
internationalist peace propaganda and have authorised neither
Social-Democratic nor any other intermediaries to conduct that
propaganda”.

An edifying farce, is it not? Will anybody believe that the German
Government, who have forbidden Vorwärts to write about the
class struggle, have introduced harsh military laws against popular meetings
and veritable “military slavery” for the proletariat—that
this government have, out of sheer liberalism, “put no
obstacles” in the way of Messrs. Quarck and Südekum, or that they
are not in constant communication with the latter gentlemen?

Is it not a thousand times more likely that Quarck inadvertently
told the truth (namely, that the peace propaganda was started by the German
Social-Democrats when they had reached a direct or indirect understanding
with their government), and that he was “officially refuted”
only for the purpose of concealing the truth.

This is a lesson to those phrase-lovers who, like Trotsky (see No. 105 of
Nashe Slovo), defend—in opposition to us—the peace
slogan, alleging among other things that “all Left-wingers” have
united for the purpose of “action” under this very slogan! The
Junker government have now demonstrated the correctness of our Berne
resolution (Sotsial-Demokrat No. 40), which says that the
propaganda of peace “unaccompanied by a call for revolutionary mass
action” can only “sow illusions” and “turn the
proletariat into a plaything in the hands of the secret diplomacy
of the belligerent
countries”.[1]

In a few years diplomatic history will prove that there was an
understanding, direct or indirect, between the opportunists and the
governments on peace palaver and this, not in Germany alone!
Diplomacy may conceal such things, but murder will out!

When the Lefts began to unite under the peace slogan, this deserved
encouragement, provided it was the first step in protest
against the chauvinists, in the same fashion as the Gaponade was the Russian
worker’s first timid protest against the tsar. But since the Lefts are
even
now confining themselves to this slogan (slogans are the
business of intelligent political leaders), they are shoddy Lefts,
there is consequently not a grain of “action” in their
resolutions, and they are consequently a plaything in the hands of the
Sudekums, Quarcks, Sembats, Hyndmans, Joffres, and Hindenburgs.

Anyone who fails to understand this even today, when the peace slogan
("unaccompanied by a call for revolutionary mass action") has been
prostituted by the Vienna
Conference[2] of Bernstein, Kautsky and
Co. with the Scheidernanns (the German Vorstand, their Executive),
is simply an unwitting participant in the social-chauvinist humbugging of
the people.

Notes

[2]The
reference is to the Conference of Socialists of Germany and Austria-Hungary,
held in Vianna in April 1915. The Conference approved of the
social-chauvinist stand taken by the leadership of the German and Austrian
socialist parties, wich justified the war and stated, in their resolutions,
that this did not run counter to proletarian unity and to the workers’
international solidarity in the struggle for peace.